A chat with Martin Armstrong and Tom Luongo
Key Markets report for Wednesday, 14 May 2025
In the aftermath of Saturday’s Cornerstone Forum in Alberta, Martin Armstrong, Tom Luongo and I sat down for an unscripted and wide-ranging discussion about the events in global finance, economics and geopolitics. The starting point of the discussion was Donald Trump’s Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
Martin Armstrong, who knows Scott Bessent well, is not reassured. Luongo believes however, that it's very encouraging that the Treasury Secretary and the Federal Reserve chairman are meeting on a weekly basis and coordinating monetary and fiscal policies, which hasn't been the case in a long time.
From my point of view, Bessent gets the benefit of the doubt: he is a former hedge fund manager, not a banker. He therefore understands financial markets but is not necessarily beholden to any of the big banks in the same way as many of his predecessors like Timothy Geithner, Robert Rubin or Henry Paulson were.
The discussion then turned to the convoluted financial dealings related to western plunder of Russia in the 1990s involving shady characters like George Safra, Edmond Safra, Bill Browder, Boris Jordan and many others. Both Martin Armstrong and I published books on this subject and exchanged notes extensively before Armstrong's book "The Plot to Seize Russia." was published.
West's unrelenting hostility towards Russia has continued to determine its foreign policy which, in the US, has largely been led by the Neocons, a small group with almost negligible support in the population, but disproportionate power in shaping US foreign policy. The question is, where does this group's power derive from?
Clearly, their loyalties must be aligned with the big financial interests. Some indications suggest that these interests link up with the City of London and have had predominant influence on US foreign policy for decades. This "special relationship" is now breaking under Trump's leadership and it will lead to tectonic changes in world affairs. Our discussion also covered the remarkably brief Conclave at the Vatican which elected an American Bishop as the new pope, what this could mean and whether the Trump Administration's influence was pivotal in achieving that outcome.
In the last 15 minutes of the podcast I asked Armstrong what the future held for European currencies. Specifically, which one would collapse first: euro or the British pound? As expected, Martin thought that euro would go first and his answer triggered a lively discussion about European economics, monetary policy and the dismal future of the EU. The full discussion, lasting about 80 min. is available at the link below (it begins at around 10-min. mark after an introduction by by Cornerstone Forum' organizer, Shaun Newman):
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Today’s trading signals
With yesterday’s closing prices we have the following changes for the Key Markets portfolio:
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